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Discard (8)

Sideboard (15)

I've piloted this list to two 5-0 finishes in the MTGO competitive league.

Why Play this Deck:

Izzet Spells, or Izzet Phoenix, or Izzet Thing, or whatever it is called – takes advantage of some of the powerful new cards brought in by Guilds of Ravnica. Arclight Phoenix is a threat that can be recurred as early as Turn 2. Thing in the Ice is an already powerful card that has seen success in the past and complements this playstyle very nicely. Finally, all the spells power up Bedlam Reveler, giving the deck some late-game staying power.

What makes the deck fun to play is that depending on your hand and the matchup, you can look like anywhere between Burn, Hollow One, Dredge, and Temur Delver. Players who enjoy those decks will likely enjoy this one as well.

Threats Package:

The ideal play pattern is usually to play out your spells during first main phase, flip TiTi, then have the Phoenixes come back during combat step so they all attack together on an empty board. With a good hand, you’ll have opponents scooping before they’ve placed a third land!

If you have multiple TiTi available to play (say on turns 2 and 3) try to stagger the number of counters on them by playing a spell in between. This gives you the option to bounce the entire board twice on subsequent turns, and can be relevant against decks with a lot of chump blockers.

Sometimes there is no choice but to bounce your own Phoenixes, and this is fine. It can even be a value play as you discard them to a flashed-back Faithless Looting (for example) to get more fresh gas in your hand.

Bedlam Reveler is a supplemental threat and refuel mechanism. I’ve seen several lists that run 4x Bedlam Reveler but personally I prefer 3 – it’s terrible to draw in multiples and you never want to see it in your opening hand. Also, it gets locked out very hard by graveyard hate and one of the first cards to be sideboarded out in many matchups.

Cantrip Package:

Visions allows you to keep low-land hands and dig for what you need. It’s preferable to Opt because we want to be playing at sorcery speed a lot of the time anyways to bring back Arclight Phoenix.

Manamorphose is extremely powerful and sets up some of the really unfair draws. Cycling it for a card is almost always wrong unless the situation is desperate. One choice that can be tricky (and actually cost you games) is picking incorrect colors when you still have some cards left to draw before you finish “going off.” Generally, red mana is more necessary than blue if you expect to play Faithless Looting that turn, as you may want it to fuel discarded Fiery Temper.

Thought Scour is just so-so but it fills a necessary role as a 1CMC spell that also can sometimes let you get lucky by milling Phoenix. I’ve seen lists run as few as 2, personally I prefer 3. This card is often trimmed in sideboard games.

If you have multiple cantrips available to play the same turn, play your “draw” effects before your “draw, then discard” effects to increase the odds of getting an extra Phoenix.

For example, the sequence Serum Visions (scry non-Phoenix cards to the bottom) -> Thought Scour -> Faithless Looting looks 8 cards deep into your library. If you’re looking for something other than a Phoenix (for example, an extra land) you may want to alter that order to play the Thought Scour first.

Flex Slot – Mission Briefing. Generally just a worse Snapcaster Mage, this is one deck where Mission Briefing can actually shine. Counting as an extra spell for Phoenix and possibly surveilling another into the bin along the way is quite an upside. However, it’s terrible to draw in multiples and I’d say the maximum a list should run is 2, more likely only 1.

Discard Package:

Faithless Looting is the best card in the deck and using it correctly will win (or lose) you many games.

It’s almost always incorrect to FL on Turn 1 unless you’re desperately digging for a land. Why? Additional draw steps to find Arclight Phoenix opens up for much more explosive turn 3 plays, which is the earliest reliable turn you can be returning Phoenixes and the basis for your best starts. There are only so many 1 CMC spells to cast to return the Phoenix on that turn, and you want to maximize your chances to make that happen.

Unlike decks such as Hollow One, we have very limited ways to use cards once they’re in the discard pile. Use FL to set up your powerful swing turns and you’ll be much happier with the results. Using FL too early can cause you to run out of gas if you’re discarding non-synergistic cards to it. We’re a low land count deck so the flashback mode can take many turns to become useful.

Izzet Charm has great flexibility with utility in every mode. However, 2CMC makes it much harder to chain it into a 3-spell turn unless you have Manamorphose. Personally I think 4x is too many to run, as multiples can easily clog up your hand, and I’ve been happiest playing 3 copies.

Chart a Course is divisive, and I’ve seen some decks that run a full 4 copies. The advantage is that it gives both good card selection, or even card advantage if you don’t need to discard and can play it after an attack. However, only discarding 1 card doesn’t facilitate your biggest swing turns as much, and at 2CMC it can easily rot in your hand for some time. I’d personally not want more than 2x copies.

Baby Jace is perhaps the most controversial pick, with many lists cutting it altogether. I'll make a case here that this is the wrong decision.

Starting with the cons:

Often JVP dies immediately before you can use him

an annoying card to pull off the top while you're trying to string together 3 spells to recur Phoenixes.

But, that being said, there are many pros:

Jace almost always flips immediately into a high-loyalty PW who protects himself and your life total. This is great in midrange or aggressive matchups because he can absorb damage that would otherwise go at your face.

He's one of the few sources of pure card advantage in the deck. Using the minus ability twice is like drawing spells of your choice two turns in a row, making it trivial to recur Phoenixes and generally out-card your opponent.

The tap ability turns Fiery Temper into "bolt plus draw a card" even if your graveyard has been permanently nuked. It also lets you clean up crappy opening hands at no mana cost, discarding extra lands and turning them into gas.

He's a standalone win-con against slow control or prison decks. He might as well be Rampant Growth against UW Control, because they have to Path to Exile him immediately. His ultimate is an out to Ensnaring Bridge decks which, aside from Abrade, you're very cold to. I've beaten Prison decks with double Bridge, Chalice and Blood Moon on the field thanks to Jace.

The deck needs a proactive T2 play. Ideally, that's Thing in the ice but we don't always have it. What else are you going to spend your mana on? Jace requires an immediate answer or he flips, which can throw off your opponents tempo and delay them playing a threat.

I think it's a mistake to not include 1-2 copies of JVP in the deck. That being said, he's often trimmed or cut in combo matchups, or against opponents with Lightning Bolt (eating a Fatal Push is fine because it saves a TiTi, but bolt is otherwise nearly dead against us). Take him out in those particular games.

Burn Package:

The Bolts are self-explanatory. I’ll add that playing any less than 4x Fiery Temper is a mistake, because even as burn to the face it’s great to turn your discards into extra resources.

I’ve been edging toward 1x Abrade in the main board as a flex slot. Much of the hate that people bring in is artifact based, and it’s very rare for a deck to be totally absent on targets for Abrade.

Notably, a glaring hole in the removal package is threats with >3 toughness. We’re dependent on TiTi to bounce them, or Phoenix to fly over. Harvest Pyre or Spite of Mogis are considerations, but both rely on the graveyard so much that they’re worse in sideboarded games (where we might be considering bringing them in). The deck is very soft to Tarmogoyf et al, but I’m not sure there is a great solution.

Mana Base:

We need a steady supply of red mana and having more than 1 Island in play is typically not desirable. (Incidentally, this is why Blood Moon has no place in this archetype- we want lots of duals in play). The fetches are tilted towards finding Mountains for this reason.

2x Steam Vents has felt generally right to me, as the blue requirements are quite light - excluding Mission Briefing - and taking less damage from the manabase is a perk, compared to 3x copies.

I’ve been playing a list with only 18 lands, and after some testing that seems like the correct number.

Whenever you play a discard effect, try to have 1 red mana source available in play just in case you draw into Fiery Temper.

Wooded Foothills (or whichever other red fetch you use - doesn't really matter which one) should go find Steam Vents wherever possible, as Scalding Tarn can go get any fetchable land in the deck while Foothills cannot.

Avoid fetching an island as one of your first 3 lands wherever possible. There are many times where you'll want multiple red in the same turn, to support your best tempo plays such as Faithless Looting into Fiery Temper and having an island can cause you to delay a turn in recurring a Phoenix.

Double blue mana is generally not needed until turn 4.

We have 7 fetchable lands and 7 fetches to get them. If you're expecting the game to go long, it's preferable to discard fetches as compared to your mana-producing lands.

Delver Mode: Get an Arclight Phoenix into play as quickly as possible (which can happen as early as Turn 2: Manamorphose, Looting, Discard Phoenix, cast any 1CMC spell, revive Phoenix) and chip away at them while using burn and Izzet Charm counters as disruption. Often this ends up in a racing scenario, which is favorable due to having 8 bolts and hasty threats.

Combo Mode: play Thing in the Ice on Turn 2, flip it on T3/T4 along with a Phoenix to attack for 10-13 damage. Demands an immediate answer and quickly puts your opponent onto the back foot. The deck can, in theory, kill on Turn 3 but T4 is much more likely.

Grind Mode: not the preferred outcome but often where you end up against removal-heavy or midrange decks. Here is where Bedlam Reveler starts to shine. Often the game plan here is to save up for one big swing turn with several Phoenixes, or to chip away at them with burn to eke out lethal. The longer the game goes, the more Phoenixes you have in the bin, the more threatening that swing turn becomes.

And unfortunately, there is a fourth play pattern: Do-Nothing Mode. Your early draws do not hit a threat or it is quickly removed, and/or your hand is clunky and you’re unable to begin pressuring seriously until turn 5 or 6. Happily, TiTi is a great catch-up tool and this deck is not as all-in on the aggro plan as, for example, the mono-red version. But there is a certain fail-rate that you have to put up with.

Outcome #4 can somewhat be avoided with proper mulligan decisions. However, this deck does not mulligan well as you need a certain critical mass of spells to build velocity, put cards in the graveyard, and get your plan into motion.

One land hand with Serum Visions (plus ideally also a Phoenix): snap keep. The deck can play just fine off 2-3 lands for the first several turns, and your odds of hitting a second land with 1-2 spells to dig for it are quite good. (Note that this is more risky against decks with targeted discard when they're on the play - however the risk of missing your second land drop is usually worse than mulling into a terrible 6 or 5 and getting hit with Thoughtseize anyways.)

In general, land-heavy hands are to be avoided, unless there’s a Looting available to dump the chaff.

The worst possible hand: 3-4 lands, TiTi, Phoenix, Reveler, no spells. If the earliest you can possibly deploy a threat is Turn 4 then the hand is too slow and should likely be thrown back – especially because lacking early spells makes the Reveler-refuel grind plan impossible.

To make the deck work you need a threat plus enablers for that threat (discard effect for Phoenix, Manamorphose for TiTi). These can be cobbled together in a lot of different ways, and the deck sees a lot of cards, so as long as a hand has some cantrips to get the gas flowing then a hand is probably keepable. Going below 6 cards is a massive disadvantage so there’s some incentive to keep borderline hands.

The recent revitalization of Dredge has brought a lot of graveyard hate into sideboards, and you need to be prepared! Izzet has no good way to remove enchantments such as Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void, so you will play many sideboarded games where your main engine has been shut off.

There are two broad philosophies in dealing with hate cards. The first approach is to bring in stuff that removes their hate piece (for example, splashing green for Destructive Revelry). I think this is a bad idea because if they don’t draw the hate, or you get your answer too late, you’re likely to still lose or die with a removal spell rotting in your hand.

In my opinion, the best possible way to beat graveyard hate is one card: Crackling Drake. In matchups where your graveyard might be shut off as a resource, it’s a huge evasive threat and also refills your hand with much-needed gas. If I’m expecting Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace, I’ll trim 2-3 Bedlam Revelers for Drakes. They win many games.

Some broad rules of thumb:

Against Blood Moon decks, board out Mission Briefing.

Against anything white or black, trim or remove entirely the Bedlam Revelers for Drakes, as you may not have a graveyard to work with post-sideboard. Same for decks playing Bojuka Bog.

In fast matchups, sideboard out Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy.

Abrade comes in very often as a catch-all, as a lot of hate people play is artifact-based.

Alpine Moon is obviously for Tron, but can also act as a Stone Rain against Amulet Titan if you pick one of their bounce-lands.

Surgical is primarily for Storm, Dredge, or other graveyard decks. 1-2 copies can be okay against graveyard synergy lists like Mardu Pyro, but don’t overdo it.

Playing Through Graveyard Hate

So the opponent, after getting smashed on turn 4 in the first game, smugly lays down their hate piece in Game 2. Fear not, you still have a very good chance for a win.

1) If it's Leyline of the Void, they now have 3 extra dead cards in their deck, while all your cards are still live - if a bit less efficient.

2) If it's Rest in Peace, they just spent their second turn doing nothing to effect the board, and they have 1-2 other dead cards in their deck, while yours are all still live - if a bit less efficient.

3) Often your opponent mulliganed into finding their early graveyard hate, and may have kept a hand that otherwise is very slow and does very little to apply pressure.

You are now in "value mode." The goal is to conserve resources, contain their board with burn, while preparing to win with Crackling Drake or Thing in the Ice. Your Faithless Looting should be saved until it can discard dead land cards or enable Fiery Temper. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy becomes MVP by helping filter out the less efficient draws. Unless they have fast pressure to back up the hate, you can still easily win.

The goal here is to force them into cracking their artifact for minimal value. Generally we don't care if they eat away at our graveyard for a few turns with Relic, because Bedlam Reveler is the only card that cares about graveyard count and it should be sideboarded out already. Eventually they tap out and you can go for a Phoenix play, or sacrifice one Phoenix to get the hate card off the board.

These cards are good reasons to hold off binning any Phoenixes until you are ready to recur them that turn - a good rule of thumb in any case.

Maindeck and sideboard Abrade are also there to force use of the hate card at inopportune times - also handles Grafdigger's Cage, which typically shows up in minimal copies even in the sideboards that run it.

Decks that run this are more spell and cantrip based, usually (e.g. Grixis Death Shadow). Presence of Snapcaster Mage is often a good clue this is coming in.

Against Surgical, you don't want to leave any birds in your hand when going off (as you lose them anyways). Ideally, you go off with Dispel as backup and they are hosed. Bonus points if you can bait them and make Dispel the third spell that recurs the Phoenixes (against an opponent playing tight, this should practically never happen, however).

The sideboard slots in this deck are very tight (which is why I have Abrade in the main) but can be broken down into a few categories.

Decks that are faster

Decks that go bigger

Combo (including big mana)

Graveyard synergy.

Based on that, we have a few categories to fulfill.

Big mana (Tron, Titanshift) is nearly unbeatable without a hate card, so we have Alpine Moon. Numbers: 2-3

Very fast graveyard decks are nearly unbeatable (Dredge, Bridgevine) so we have Surgical Extraction. Alternate: Tormod's Crypt. Tormod is better hate, Surgical is weaker against dedicated graveyard but keeps some utiity/synergy value.

Faster decks are an okay matchup, so we have either Pyroclasm or Anger of the Gods. I like Pyroclasm for being better with the main-deck plan and cheaper CMC, Anger is good for doubling as Dredge has but much worse when you're mana-constrained or they are faster than expected.

Burn / Arclight Red matches: some life gain with Dragon's Claw is a very likely win. There are no great substitutes here so omit it only if you don't expect that in the meta. Turns a 50/50 matchup into a 75/25 matchup by itself.

Control. Here we want more countermagic to defend threats, such as Dispel, card, Spell Piere, Negate, or to stall their big plays with Disdainful Stroke.

These lists vary a lot. You mostly want to be as fast as possible before Knight of the Reliquary ends your fun. Cut Bedlam Revelers and add Crackling Drakes as they have little to answer flying. I would also likely add Dispel to answer Collected Company and Path to Exile.

Watch out for Blood Moon in G1, likely sided out in following games. These games often go long due to their early hand disruption but are won when you can get a burst of Phoenixes eventually to kill them. We are the much better Faithless Looting deck.

Slightly Favorable Matchups:

Humans - if they get Thalia and you get few lands, it's a non-game. Otherwise the removal matches up very well against them.

Spirits - key card is Spell Queller. If you play around it effectively, you win. These games go much more grindy, as keeping them off a critical mass of spirits is key.

Hollow One - you cannot beat their best draws except with a fast flip on TiTi. However, TiTi destroys them if you land it. Post-sideboard, Hollow One players often bring in many more interactive cards and weaken their engine, which is actually good for you.

Even Matchups:

U/W Control: their removal is good against us and watch out for Detention Sphere on greedy Phoenix plays. Many UW pilots seem to over-sideboard, and RIP shuts off a lot of their card advantage (Snapcaster) while we can quite easily play around it with Crackling Drake.

Burn

GB Midrange (Jund, Rock, etc): Unless they have a hand with a lot of disruption, they can’t keep up with our threats. Crackling Drake is excellent out of the sideboard. Discarding Fiery Temper to Liliana is always amusing.

Infect

Living End

Unfavorable Matchups:

Death’s Shadow - Thing is very bad here. In theory it should be great for bouncing Anglers, but it always dies. Sideboarding out all TiTi for Crackling Drakes and trying to one-shot them may be the correct strategy.

That being said, there are several other variants on the deck floating around out there. I'd even go so far as to say some of my card choices are eccentric and possibly incorrect (depending on the meta).

My jumping off point was the list played at an SCG Open, by Evart Moughon . As a counterpoint, there is another version nrecently played by Andrew Schneider for GP Atlanta .

Compare/Contrast with the Andrew Schneider version of Arclight Izzet Show

Comparing the two lists, Schneider's version has:

More Chart a Course, cutting Izzet Charm completely

More burn that can go to the face (Burst Lightning) as opposed to my flex slot Mission Briefing

one more Bedlam Reveler, no Jace Vryn's Prodigy

less fetches in the manabase, instead using Shivan Reef, an extra Steam Vents and one more basic. Notably this makes Serum Visions scry effect better due to less shuffling.

Points I don't agree with:

A higher count of islands vs mountains - having only one red source available on T2/T3 is very bad because it cuts off one of the best tempo plays, which is Faithless Looting --> Fiery Temper. I find red mana is almost always more needed than blue. It does make the deck better against Blood Moon, but that card has been a non-issue almost every time I play against it.

A 4th Bedlam Reveler. Discussed in card choices above, this is one of my least favorite cards to draw except when I've flooded out and am empty handed - and with the number of cantrips, Reveler is often not that good because your hand is rarely empty.

No sideboard plan against graveyard hate.

On the plus side, I do think the list is oriented toward maximizing the number of busted draws the deck can provide. Extra Thought Scours and Chart a Course give more chances to get a Phoenix in the bin, and Izzet Charm is notably inefficient as a draw/discard effect.

However, the percentage points the deck gains in explosiveness are, in my mind, not made up for by the ability to grind that including Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Mission Briefing, and Izzet Charm (as extra interaction) give. I imagine that Andrew's list has better matchups against big mana decks like Tron while being worse against tempo/midrange decks like Humans, which are quite good for me.

Also, running blue with no options at all to counter spells seems like a missing link - just to force them to play around two open mana can be an advantage.

Disadvantage: Green threats such as Tarmogoyf are worse in this shell than TiTi and there are no explosive green payoffs to be added to the main. You'll take more damage from your lands and lose more to burn.

Conclusion: if you want Temur, play Temur Delver instead and forget about the Arclight Phoenix plan. It's a decent deck but not a great one, but better than you'd arrive at by adding a random green splash to this archetype.

Advantage: Superior removal with Path to Exile fills a large hole in midrange matchups.

Disadvantage: White removal does not go to face as well as red and doesn't help in the most problematic matchups, which are graveyard and big mana decks.

Suggestion: I think Myth Realized might be another potential payoff threat and I'd be excited to see what the archetype could look like - I may try to brew this as a future project.

Thank you for visiting and reading through my comments on this list. Expect this primer to continue evolving as i play more games and gain more experience. If you found this valuable or helpful, I'd welcome your comments or an upvote.

Draw (12)

Discard (8)

Sideboard (15)

1x Abrade

2x Alpine&emsp13;Moon

3x Crackling&emsp13;Drake

2x Dispel

2x Dragon's&emsp13;Claw

1x Negate

1x Pyroclasm

3x Surgical&emsp13;Extraction

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